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Whenever we have featured Mega Emotion in the past, we have always been taken aback by the sheer ferocity of their sound. Huge, cacophonous electronics have battered us into submission, and we have graciously bent the knee in servitude to their frenetic chaos-pop. Today though, they have taken pity on us and provided a moment of delightfully light and airy pop respite.

With a hint of the Human League about it, “Laura” is a glorious late autumn sunset of a track. Balmy and tender, the synths drift effortlessly as Lisa and Jan’s vocals entwine and then harmonise with Iain’s. Even the machine gun beats are more gentle, pulsing rather than clattering as they have done in the past. It’s a moment of serenity, three minutes of blissful euphoria and contentment, full to bursting with love when everything comes good, before the inevitable tumultuous crash that follows.

Mind you, Mega Emotion are pretty damn good at soundtracking that crash as well, and we look forward to more of that in the future. They have promised to get more experimental soon, but for now we are getting lost in the dreamy, soft-focus sounds of “Laura”.

If history has taught us one thing, it is that the very best pop songs are usually born from heartbreak. The melancholic and reflective lyrics are often married with a lively, upbeat melody that we can’t help but dance to and sing along with. So it is with “Rollout”, whose accompanying video is every bit as addictive as the song itself.

The third track from Self Esteem (Slow Club’s Rebecca Lucy Taylor) deals in part with how, no matter how much love you are surrounded by, it can feel meaningless if it doesn’t come from the person you want it from the most. It’s reflective and painfully honest as the chorus contemplates the sacrifice of personal wellbeing to please another.

It’s not what you would think of as being the most uplifting of subjects, but there is brightness to both the video and the song. It is one of the catchiest songs we’ve heard in some time and we have often woken with it bouncing round our brain of a morning. The marching band-esque drumbeat rouses cheerily and there is defiance in Taylor’s vocals, as well as resignation.

The video, directed by Piers Dennis, brilliantly captures the distracted nature of a recent break up, the inability to focus properly and the need for a connection. Alongside this is some great choreographed dancing (which we’re a total sucker for) that again, shows strength and weakness in equal measure.

Following on from last year’s “Your Wife” and previous single, “Wrestling”; “Rollout” continues the Self Esteem streak of great tracks. Long may it continue.

”Rollout” is out now and available to stream or buy via the service of your chooice here

Being a music blog, we often get to hear music that most people haven’t heard of yet. It is also often presumed that we have heard all the music that people haven’t heard of yet, which is absolutely not the case. Being a part time music blog as we have been of late, it is more often the case that we may have heard of a band, but not actually heard their music. Such was the case with Bristol’s Swimming Girls over the last few months.

They were a band we were aware of because a lot of people whose opinion we trust were getting very excited by them, but we just hadn’t got the chance to listen to them yet. All that changed one spring Monday when we pootled off to see Fickle Friends and Swimming Girls were the main support. Suddenly we knew what all the fuss was about and immediately cursed our metal bodies for not acting sooner.

Their latest single, “Asking For It” is a fairly huge, festival ready piece of pop music. People much more educated in these matters will point to the indie surf rock nature of it but our weird ears are (whisper it) detecting traces of Katy Perry in there. The chorus is, to put it politely, fucking massive. You know the kind, the ones that get sung back to the band by a huge adoring crowd in a field as the sun starts to dip beyond the horizon.

The guitars simultaneously jangle and sparkle (no mean feat) as the rhythm kicks along with infectious ease. Vanessa’s vocals are warm and welcoming, which is doubly fantastic as “Asking For It” is a break up song. It was, she explains, “Written at the bitter end of a relationship, it explores the distinct lack of sympathy you feel after being hurt over and over again.” If only at least one the break ups we’ve experienced was as wonderful and as joyous as this. The whole thing is ridiculously catchy and a sure fire earworm that you won’t want to get out of your head.

It’s that time again. Months after we last pricked our typing finger and fell fast asleep, Chløë Black has once more hacked her way through the foliage around Castle Alphabet Bands to plant the kiss of true musical love on our forehead and awoken us from our slumber. This time she’s in a silver lamé jumpsuit and has come armed with ray guns, tin foil and plastic flying saucers.

Black’s seductive vocals and her deliciously, subtly infectious melodies have always taken us to infinity and beyond and now we’re flying higher than ever. Co-written with Ferras, “Spaceman” is about the sometimes unrealistic expectations we place on romantic partners to be entirely extraordinary and almost infallible. It is also as good as anything she has done to date; lyrically dextrous, inventive and quick witted. It trips and swirls around the cosmos as synth stars go supernova around her. The beat pops and crackles like a firework powered rocket as a wistful piano line drifts beneath.

Her vocal undulates and cavorts delicately with the melody as she sings of this otherworldly being, this near mythical creature she craves to bring love and desire. It’s enticing, dreamy and incredibly real and relatable. Her noir-ish electropop sounds continues to enthrall and evolve, and those hooks continue to enslave even the most resistant of minds.

If there is one thing guaranteed to get us writing again after a gap of any length of time (days, weeks, months) it’s a new Chløë Black tune. Having last grabbed us for “Waterbed” based shenanigans in October, she has now stirred us once more to engage in some “Good Times”. As ever, we’re all in.

Where “Waterbed” dripped with the seductive menace of melted wax onto a restrained torso, “Good Times” trips along with the giddy frivolity of an amphetamine fueled friday night. It’s more poppy than we’re used to from Chløë but it is no less infectious, just one listen was enough to have the hook whizzing through our skull like a pilled up pacman.

Like the mundanity of everyday life giving way to a chemically induced psychedelic world, the melancholic and wistful piano line opening soon ceedes to a tropical beat that brings vibrant colour and euphoria. It is, as ever, a gloriously inviting track about a darker side of life. “Everything hurts when I’m sober” sings Chløë as she dives headfirst into another world, escaping reality and floating high above the pain of the real world.

There is a depth to the track, a mania within the lyrics and sing-a-long chorus. This is an anti-anthem that both eulogises and takes down the use and reliance of pharmaceutical stimulation. It is, of course, as addictive as its subject matter and one we are going to be regularly dosing ourselves with for sometime.